[gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Alec Warner]

+project, -dev

On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 8:54 PM, Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
> Hello!
>
>
> When you are active in Gentoo during one week and less active during the
> next it may happen that people (sometimes jokingly) call you a
> "slacker".  This pattern seems to have become common enough that people
> even started calling themselves slackers when they are less active than
> potentially possible.  Is this reasonable and healthy?
>
> No, it isn't.
>

Why is it unhealthy?  Do you think it encourages people to 'always
meet their potential?'  I think it is very healthy for developers to
note when they cannot meet what many would consider their 'routine'
workload so that the community can attempt to detect and meeting these
staffing needs.  You may dislike the manner in which some developers
make this known 'hahaha I slacked off last week..' but the end result
is that it happens (often in .away messages.)


> As far as I know most if not all Gentoo developers do unpaid voluntary
> work in and for Gentoo.  So every single minute a Gentoo developer puts
> into Gentoo is a gift, incontrast to understanding every other minute a
> stolen one.  How come such a wrong concept even made it into the process
> of the council?  Officially being marked as a slacker?  Is that the only
> way to ensure an active council?

I would hesitate to make the assertion that every minute spent on
Gentoo is a gift.  You are not counting the people who do not always
have a positive impact on the community (see the other thread where
you brought up CoC violations and other 'gifts' of community members.)

Do you disagree with the policy that council members should attend the
meetings?  If so why?  If not, what is wrong with the existing policy;
the wording?

>
> To get this mis-concept out again I need your help.
> There is no such thing as slacking in Gentoo - no matter how many weeks
> you ran without commits.  It's time to get this understanding back to
> its healthy counterpart.  Yes, it does make a difference to call a
> script activity-monitor or slacking-detector.

I am unsure what you are actually asking to change.  Are you aiming to
change developer behavior?  Tools?  Processes?

>
> What do we need to to do fix this?
> What are the places where you observe this inversion?
>
> Thanks for your interest,
>
>
>
> Sebastian
>
>

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Alec,


On 06/16/10 06:48, Alec Warner wrote:
>> When you are active in Gentoo during one week and less active during the
>> next it may happen that people (sometimes jokingly) call you a
>> "slacker".  This pattern seems to have become common enough that people
>> even started calling themselves slackers when they are less active than
>> potentially possible.  Is this reasonable and healthy?
>>
>> No, it isn't.
> 
> Why is it unhealthy?

I believe it's unhealthy because it's using guilt as a tool.

Also, it's inverting being a developer from doing something to not not
doing something: inverting being good to not being evil.  That's two
different things.

It's fine to me to beg people to fix certain things and remind them from
time to time.  Calling people slackers seems respectless to me, though.
 Everyone is free to do work on Gentoo or not: Gentoo is about choice.


> I would hesitate to make the assertion that every minute spent on
> Gentoo is a gift.  You are not counting the people who do not always
> have a positive impact on the community (see the other thread where
> you brought up CoC violations and other 'gifts' of community members.)

That's a difficult one: I would say it's a gift as long as intentions
are good from an ethic(?) point of view.


> Do you disagree with the policy that council members should attend the
> meetings?  If so why?  If not, what is wrong with the existing policy;
> the wording?

It would be good if they joined the meeting, yes.

I don't believe anyone needs to be burned or marked a slacker, though,
if he doesn't attend.  To me the remaining attendees should be able to
decide without him (unless quorum(?) has been rejected earlier).


> I am unsure what you are actually asking to change.  Are you aiming to
> change developer behavior?  Tools?  Processes?

I'm asking for a change in thinking and processes.

I hope to have made my point a bit more clear.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Nirbheek Chauhan]

On Wed, Jun 30, 2010 at 5:31 AM, Sebastian Pipping <sping@gentoo.org> wrote:
> On 06/16/10 06:48, Alec Warner wrote:
>>> When you are active in Gentoo during one week and less active during the
>>> next it may happen that people (sometimes jokingly) call you a
>>> "slacker".  This pattern seems to have become common enough that people
>>> even started calling themselves slackers when they are less active than
>>> potentially possible.  Is this reasonable and healthy?
>>>
>>> No, it isn't.
>>
>> Why is it unhealthy?
>
> I believe it's unhealthy because it's using guilt as a tool.
>
> Also, it's inverting being a developer from doing something to not not
> doing something: inverting being good to not being evil.  That's two
> different things.
>

I've never felt guilt when I was called a slacker. Nor have I every
used it to induce guilt, nor seen it induce guilt. I've only seen it
being used in a humorous or ironical way, and only to people whom you
know very well personally. It's a form of bonding, has nothing to do
with using guilt as a tool to make someone contribute more to Gentoo.

Hell, armin76, one of our *most* active devs, who manages several
arches all by himself, took over the mozilla herd when no one was
left, etc etc has been called a slacker by me for ironic effect
several times.

You're jumping to conclusions about this without understanding what
they are for, what they mean, etc. The word 'slacker', the word
'fail', the phrase 'use repoman || die', kicking new recruits on
#-dev, the word^Wperson 'welp', all are part of an enormous set of
in-jokes in Gentoo. In-jokes are an essential part of community
bonding *everywhere*. OTOH, it is also very easy to misunderstand and
misinterpret in-jokes if you've not been a part of them for very long.

Please don't try to dismantle the jokes that make Gentoo fun.

-- 
~Nirbheek Chauhan

Gentoo GNOME+Mozilla Team

[gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

["Paweł Hajdan, Jr."]

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On 6/16/10 5:54 AM, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> As far as I know most if not all Gentoo developers do unpaid voluntary
> work in and for Gentoo.  So every single minute a Gentoo developer puts
> into Gentoo is a gift, incontrast to understanding every other minute a
> stolen one.  How come such a wrong concept even made it into the process
> of the council?  Officially being marked as a slacker?  Is that the only
> way to ensure an active council?

I think it's confusing you mention the council here. Council is there to
make decisions. If people miss the meetings, we can't make decisions.

Also, note that a council member can be proxied by other developer.

> To get this mis-concept out again I need your help.
> There is no such thing as slacking in Gentoo - no matter how many weeks
> you ran without commits.  It's time to get this understanding back to
> its healthy counterpart.

Could you explain more? Is it about people retiring because of that?

If so, then I agree we should permit some "leaves of absence" or maybe
even "sabbaticals" to keep talented people in the project, while
allowing them to rest.

Also, one can return after retiring.

Paweł


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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Steve Dibb]

>> To get this mis-concept out again I need your help.
>> There is no such thing as slacking in Gentoo - no matter how many weeks
>> you ran without commits.  It's time to get this understanding back to
>> its healthy counterpart.
>>      
>

I'm not sure what problem you are trying to tackle.

The way I see it, there are a few types of "slacker" status.

There are those who are just plain busy, and can't respond in a timely 
manner due to real-life issues.  Then there are a group who just don't 
have time for Gentoo as a regular maintenance task anymore, but still 
participate in discussions, development, etc.  Then there's the last 
group who are completely unresponsive and inactive -- these are the ones 
that are real blockers.

I don't like the idea of pretending there's no such thing as slacking, 
because there is.

We do have a practical problem (though I don't know how serious it is).  
We have healthy roll calls in some herds, but the developers are in a 
certain range of active to unresponsive.  When the herd is filled up, 
this gives developers and users the impression that it *should* be well 
tendered, but that may not be the case.

Steve

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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On 16-06-2010 17:28, Steve Dibb wrote:
>>> To get this mis-concept out again I need your help.
>>> There is no such thing as slacking in Gentoo - no matter how many weeks
>>> you ran without commits.  It's time to get this understanding back to
>>> its healthy counterpart.
> 
> I'm not sure what problem you are trying to tackle.
> 
> The way I see it, there are a few types of "slacker" status.
> 
> There are those who are just plain busy, and can't respond in a timely
> manner due to real-life issues.  Then there are a group who just don't
> have time for Gentoo as a regular maintenance task anymore, but still
> participate in discussions, development, etc.  Then there's the last
> group who are completely unresponsive and inactive -- these are the ones
> that are real blockers.
> 
> I don't like the idea of pretending there's no such thing as slacking,
> because there is.
> 
> We do have a practical problem (though I don't know how serious it is). 
> We have healthy roll calls in some herds, but the developers are in a
> certain range of active to unresponsive.  When the herd is filled up,
> this gives developers and users the impression that it *should* be well
> tendered, but that may not be the case.

So everyone can have an idea, I'd suggest looking at the list of the
open retirement bugs[1].
As there seems to be some confusion about the policies to retire
developers, please read the undertakers page[2].


 [1] -
https://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&short_desc_type=allwordssubstr&short_desc=&product=Gentoo+Developers%2FStaff&component=Retirement&long_desc_type=substring&long_desc=&bug_file_loc_type=allwordssubstr&bug_file_loc=&status_whiteboard_type=allwordssubstr&status_whiteboard=&keywords_type=allwords&keywords=&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED&bug_status=VERIFIED&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exact&email1=retirement%40gentoo.org&emailassigned_to2=1&emailreporter2=1&emailcc2=1&emailtype2=substring&email2=&bugidtype=include&bug_id=&votes=&chfieldfrom=&chfieldto=Now&chfieldvalue=&cmdtype=doit&order=Reuse+same+sort+as+last+time&field0-0-0=noop&type0-0-0=noop&value0-0-0=

 [2] - http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/undertakers/index.xml

> Steve
> 

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Jorge,


On 06/17/10 03:10, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> So everyone can have an idea, I'd suggest looking at the list of the
> open retirement bugs[1].
> As there seems to be some confusion about the policies to retire
> developers, please read the undertakers page[2].

Interesting links, thanks.


Two things come to my mind:  Step 2 of the undertakers page reads:

  "When sending an email to the developer in question, make sure you
   tell him, that he might get retired due to being inactive."

If I'm not mistaken this is telling the developer about potential
retirement on first direct contact.  If that's true I don't consider it
very sensitive.  After all our goal is to keep that developer in, not
out.  So my proposal is:  please add another two weeks and a second mail
so the first one does not mention retirement.  How about that?


The other thing is: what are the reasons to retire inactive developers?
Are these reasons documented somewhere?

Thanks!



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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On 30-06-2010 00:12, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Jorge,
>
>
> On 06/17/10 03:10, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
>> So everyone can have an idea, I'd suggest looking at the list of
>> the open retirement bugs[1]. As there seems to be some confusion
>> about the policies to retire developers, please read the
>> undertakers page[2].
>
> Interesting links, thanks.
>
>
> Two things come to my mind:  Step 2 of the undertakers page reads:
>
> "When sending an email to the developer in question, make sure you
> tell him, that he might get retired due to being inactive."
>
> If I'm not mistaken this is telling the developer about potential
> retirement on first direct contact.  If that's true I don't
> consider it very sensitive.  After all our goal is to keep that
> developer in, not out.  So my proposal is:  please add another two
> weeks and a second mail so the first one does not mention
> retirement.  How about that?
>

One aspect of the undertakers work that is not mentioned in the
project page is that we generally start our work from the mails people
send announcing their retirement and from the automatic activity mails
that are sent to our alias.
So as stated in step 2 and after doing a filtering of active people
from the above mails, we start by approaching developers, their
project(s) lead(s) and the developers themselves trying to investigate
whether a developer is MIA, really stopped contributing or if he / she
is active in other ways. We only move on to step 3 where we reopen the
bug and start sending the official e-mails about possible retirement,
if we are convinced the developer is really inactive.
You have a very good point and one that the undertakers team really
embraces - the goal of the undertakers work is not to "kick"
developers out, but to get them to resume contribution to the project.
There are however certain minimal levels of commitment that we expect
and ask from developers.

>
> The other thing is: what are the reasons to retire inactive
> developers? Are these reasons documented somewhere?

There are some considerations about retirement in section 3[1] of the
"Developer Relations Policy Guide"[2] and the undertakers project
page[3] states that undertakers "handle{s} developer retirement, both
when developers announce their retirement as well as due to developer
inactivity."

The following is a list with a few reasons to retire inactive developers:

 * security considerations regarding access to Gentoo infra, including
tampering of the tree
 * need to ensure that maintainers are accessible, take care of
packages and bugs and that they reply on due time to community
contacts and requests
 * desire to have project and team membership, as well as package
maintenance reflect reality
 * make it clear what areas of the project are understaffed and what
packages require new maintainers
 * need to ensure that developers keep up to date regarding policies
and use of the tree by using it

 [1] - http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/policy.xml#doc_chap3
 [2] - http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/policy.xml
 [3] -
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/undertakers/index.xml#doc_chap1

> Thanks!
>
>
>
> Sebastian
>

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Jorge,


On 06/30/10 05:05, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
> The following is a list with a few reasons to retire inactive developers:
> 
>  * security considerations regarding access to Gentoo infra, including
> tampering of the tree
>  * need to ensure that maintainers are accessible, take care of
> packages and bugs and that they reply on due time to community
> contacts and requests
>  * desire to have project and team membership, as well as package
> maintenance reflect reality
>  * make it clear what areas of the project are understaffed and what
> packages require new maintainers
>  * need to ensure that developers keep up to date regarding policies
> and use of the tree by using it

interesting, thanks for elaborating.

I wonder if we could start making a stronger distinction between these
two cases of retirement.  If it isn't a throw-out I would prefer to have
that made so very clear that no one ever feels thrown out that way.
Especially that there's no guarantee to be allowed to return feels a bit
odd to me.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto]

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Sebastian,

On 02-07-2010 13:51, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Jorge,
> 
> 
> On 06/30/10 05:05, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
>> The following is a list with a few reasons to retire inactive developers:
>>
>>  * security considerations regarding access to Gentoo infra, including
>> tampering of the tree
>>  * need to ensure that maintainers are accessible, take care of
>> packages and bugs and that they reply on due time to community
>> contacts and requests
>>  * desire to have project and team membership, as well as package
>> maintenance reflect reality
>>  * make it clear what areas of the project are understaffed and what
>> packages require new maintainers
>>  * need to ensure that developers keep up to date regarding policies
>> and use of the tree by using it
> 
> interesting, thanks for elaborating.
> 
> I wonder if we could start making a stronger distinction between these
> two cases of retirement.  If it isn't a throw-out I would prefer to have
> that made so very clear that no one ever feels thrown out that way.
> Especially that there's no guarantee to be allowed to return feels a bit
> odd to me.

please read the undertakers page and the resolution of the retirement
bugs carefully as you seem to be confused about our policy to retired
developers. The only case where re-admittance is subject to particular
scrutiny is when a developer is retired for disciplinary reasons. As you
can read in the second email template[1], we specifically inform the
developer that:

"If we do retire you, it's pretty easy to come back when you are ready.
Just do the ebuild/end-quiz again and you're back on. You also always
have the option of contributing as your schedule allows via proxy or
bugzilla."

We also make sure to mention in the retirement bugs that a developer can
always return as seen on an example bug[2]. My apologies to Caleb to
link directly to his bug, but I needed one concrete reply to show
undertakers work.


[1] - http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/devrel/undertakers/retirement-second.txt
[2] - https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=317071#c1

> Best,
> 
> 
> Sebastian
> 

- -- 
Regards,

Jorge Vicetto (jmbsvicetto) - jmbsvicetto at gentoo dot org
Gentoo- forums / Userrel / Devrel / KDE / Elections
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Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Jorge,


On 07/03/10 02:26, Jorge Manuel B. S. Vicetto wrote:
>> I wonder if we could start making a stronger distinction between these
>> two cases of retirement.  If it isn't a throw-out I would prefer to have
>> that made so very clear that no one ever feels thrown out that way.
>> Especially that there's no guarantee to be allowed to return feels a bit
>> odd to me.
> 
> please read the undertakers page and the resolution of the retirement
> bugs carefully as you seem to be confused about our policy to retired
> developers.

Confused about what exactly?


> The only case where re-admittance is subject to particular
> scrutiny is when a developer is retired for disciplinary reasons. As you
> can read in the second email template[1], we specifically inform the
> developer that:
> 
> "If we do retire you, it's pretty easy to come back when you are ready.
> Just do the ebuild/end-quiz again and you're back on. You also always
> have the option of contributing as your schedule allows via proxy or
> bugzilla."
> 
> We also make sure to mention in the retirement bugs that a developer can
> always return as seen on an example bug[2]. My apologies to Caleb to
> link directly to his bug, but I needed one concrete reply to show
> undertakers work.

Agreed, it could be worse.  I would personally not trust on "you can
come back any time" though and looking forward to another round of
ebuild quizzes doesn't sound inviting to me either (not saying that
developers don't need to be up to date with Gentoo).  I'm not sure if
I'm really the most or only sensitive person in Gentoo if that's coming
to your mind now.

Let me quote an excerpt by another developer.  When I stumbled upon his
inactivity-based retirement bug I was asking if he really means to
retire.  He said:

  "If Gentoo likes to retire me, fine.  I won't stop them.
   I don't think, this will will help Gentoo get back on
   track, though, if there is a way back at all."

So I don't seem to be the only one having a bad impression of our
current concepts of retirement.  Do you read it differently?

Before I propose anything: What ways do you see to improve our concept
and realization of retirement?

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Sebastian Pipping]

Steve,


On 06/16/10 19:28, Steve Dibb wrote:
> The way I see it, there are a few types of "slacker" status.
> 
> There are those who are just plain busy, and can't respond in a timely
> manner due to real-life issues.  Then there are a group who just don't
> have time for Gentoo as a regular maintenance task anymore, but still
> participate in discussions, development, etc.  Then there's the last
> group who are completely unresponsive and inactive -- these are the ones
> that are real blockers.
> 
> I don't like the idea of pretending there's no such thing as slacking,
> because there is.

What you describe isn't slacking to me.  What is slacking to you?
is this a language thing?  Slacker translates to "Faulenzer" in German,
a person being "faul" or lazy in English.

Best,



Sebastian

Re: [gentoo-project] Re: [gentoo-dev] The mis-concept of "slacking" in Gentoo

[Roy Bamford]

On 2010.06.30 01:20, Sebastian Pipping wrote:
> Steve,
> 
> 
> On 06/16/10 19:28, Steve Dibb wrote:
> > The way I see it, there are a few types of "slacker" status.
> > 
> > There are those who are just plain busy, and can't respond in a
> timely
> > manner due to real-life issues.  Then there are a group who just
> don't
> > have time for Gentoo as a regular maintenance task anymore, but
> still
> > participate in discussions, development, etc.  Then there's the 
> last
> > group who are completely unresponsive and inactive -- these are the
> ones
> > that are real blockers.
> > 
> > I don't like the idea of pretending there's no such thing as
> slacking,
> > because there is.
> 
> What you describe isn't slacking to me.  What is slacking to you?
> is this a language thing?  Slacker translates to "Faulenzer" in
> German,
> a person being "faul" or lazy in English.
> 
> Best,
> 
> 
> 
> Sebastian
> 

Sebastian,

"Slacker" is close in meaning to "lazy" in English. Lazy implies a 
deliberate decision to not do something. Slacker, leaves the reasons 
open to question and confers the benefit of the doubt on the slacker.

We are all volunteers, Gentoo never gets above 3rd in our priority list 
after family and job. It won't even get to 3rd for a lot of developers.

Calling someone a slacker is thus a gentle reminder that something they 
look after in Gentoo needs to be attended to when they have time. It 
does not imply that they are lazy.

-- 
Regards,

Roy Bamford
(Neddyseagoon) a member of
gentoo-ops
forum-mods
trustees